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Monday, August 24, 2015

FEATURED QUESTION: BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

(This blog post is lengthy and, therefore, will remain here for a few days so that readers will have time to consider the topic before leaping to taking a position. Also, please see the blog post published on Saturday, August 22, 2015; I am seeking advice about a personal matter)

Trump's published statement about immigration reform contains the following:

End birthright citizenship. This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, including Harry Reid who said “no sane country” would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.

What, exactly, does the Constitution say about birthright citizenship? Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment reads as follows:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

...It should be noted that the condition of the father is what determines whether someone is born an alien or not because under U.S. law citizenship of wives and children always followed that of the father. And of course the status of the father was what determined the citizenship of a child born under law of nature.

[...]

...[C]itizenship by birth is established by the sovereign jurisdiction the United States already has over the parents of the child, and that required that they owe allegiance exclusively to the United States – just as is required to become a naturalized citizen. It does not require a leap of faith to understand what persons, other than citizens themselves, under the Fourteenth Amendment are citizens of the United States by birth: Those aliens who have come with the intent to become U.S. citizens, who had first complied with the laws of naturalization in declaring their intent and renounce all prior allegiances....

[...]

...There is no way in the world anyone can claim “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” affirms the feudal common law doctrine of birth citizenship to aliens because such doctrine by operation creates a “double allegiance” between separate nations.

If there is one inescapable truth to the text and debates, it is this: When Congress decided to require potential citizens to first be subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States they by default excluded all citizens of other nations temporarily residing in the U.S. who had no intention of becoming citizens themselves or, disqualified of doing so under naturalization laws. This was no oversight...

In 1884, 16 years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, John Elk, who -- as you may have surmised by his name -- was an Indian, had to go to the Supreme Court to argue that he was an American citizen because he was born in the United States.

He lost. In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not grant Indians citizenship.

The "main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment," the court explained -- and not for the first or last time -- "was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black ... should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside."

[...]

As ridiculous as it was to grant citizenship to the children born to legal immigrants under the 14th Amendment (which was about what again? That's right: slaves freed by the Civil War), that's a whole order of business different from allowing illegal aliens to sneak across the border, drop a baby and say, "Ha-ha! You didn't catch me! My kid's a citizen" -- while Americans curse impotently under their breath.

As the Supreme Court said in Elk: "[N]o one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent."

The anchor baby scam was invented 30 years ago by a liberal zealot, Justice William Brennan, who slipped a footnote into a 1982 Supreme Court opinion announcing that the kids born to illegals on U.S. soil are citizens. Fox News is treating Brennan's crayon scratchings on the Constitution as part of our precious national inheritance.

Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is America's most-cited federal judge -- and, by the way, no friend to conservatives. In 2003, he wrote a concurrence simply in order to demand that Congress pass a law to stop "awarding citizenship to everyone born in the United States."

The purpose of the 14th Amendment, he said, was "to grant citizenship to the recently freed slaves," adding that "Congress would not be flouting the Constitution" if it passed a law "to put an end to the nonsense."

Read the rest HERE. Regardless of how you feel about Ann Coulter, please read the entire essay.

Clearly, then, the matter of the interpretation of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment is quite complicated. For example, see United States v. Wong Kim Ark, an 1898 case which was not about birth tourism but a case often used to justify birthright tourism because the court's decision established jus soli (as opposed to jus sanguinis, the basis of citizenship in most nations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania).

FEATURED QUESTION in several parts: (1) Do you favor ending birthright citizenship? If so, how could that be accomplished, and what should be done with those who are already here via birthright citizenship? (2) If you do not favor ending birthright citizenship, what immigration reforms do you propose, or do you advocate keeping the status quo?

85 comments:

It is obvious that Birthright Citizenship is as much a fabrication as Roe v Wade.Your post demonstrates that in a very detailed way, when a cursory examination of the intent and times should make it clear.However, as with Roe, it will probably be an uphill battle due to the entrenched view that has been enforced for so long.Revoking citizenship is especially troublesome, but logical.Consider it "Reparations".Some compromise will have to be reached as it will be a political process that answers the question "What do we do with them?".

It is undisputed that the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause requires that one is both born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Further, no fair reading of the legislative history of the drafting of that Clause leads to any conclusion other than it required those granted citizenship have complete allegiance to the United States.

Logic dictates that illegal immigrants in defiance of the jurisdiction of the United States and citizens of foreign powers are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States as required by the 14th Amendment. And the Supreme Court has never held the opposite to be true. Congress, therefore, with its plenary power over immigration and empowerment to enforce the Citizenship Clause can restore the correct birthright citizenship policy through legislation. And indeed, if we are to have a rational immigration policy controlled by government as opposed to one controlled by every person who illegally enters, Congress must return to the original meaning of the 14th Amendment.

There is an obvious problem here which needs to be resolved. And the correction seems clear enough, and would be, except...

These days my mind is always looking to see how issues like this may be exploited by those who love every opportunity to use Hegelian dialectical strategizing.

As Americans we are deeply wedded to the notion of the permanency of our American citizenship. The citizens of most other countries have a level of fear that their citizenship may be revoked by the fiat of a leader, leaving them paperless refugees.

Remove from our countrymen the idea that American citizenship is sancrosanct, and who will complain when American dissidents are stripped of American citizenship for intolerance to Islam or the LGBT agenda? For after all, "those dissident haters forfeited their right to be Americans".

Paranoid? Maybe. And unlikely. But then again, it's happened elsewhere. Why not here.

I don't understand your comment. People coming here from Latin America are not in fear of losing their citizenship in their home countries, and in that area of the world, the threat of that is quite low.

Are you basing your comments on the presumption that removing birthright citizenship would remove previously-granted citizenship under that policy?

I realize there are advocates for this, but I don't see it happening. That would be one giant step past what we are talking about, and I don't think it would pas legal muster, and I wouldn't want us to try.

I advocate for changing the law to no longer granting birthright citizenship, but I do not want to strip anyone of their citizenship.

Alec, I totally get what you're saying....and had a contrary thought: When anybody can cross the border, have a baby, and they're citizens, how special is citizenship here? My mother worked hard to become a citizen; she's crazy about America and values her citizenship very dearly.I look at people coming across illegally, taking benefits our own don't have, and think our citizenship is very cheap.

Does that make sense?>....I've never verbalized it, but I do feel this way.

I can think of some leftwingers I'd love to strip of their citizenship and frog march off to Venezuela, Cuba or some other hellhole they sit here lounging under capitalism's umbrella as throwing mud on America while extolling the supposed 'virtues' of those third world socialist toilets they'v never even visited...

How we choose to interpret "the JURISDICTION thereof" is the crux of the matter.

As long as there are liberals around to pervert and subvert the agreed upon standards of what once was universally regarded as right, true, good and proper, there will be perpetual dissension, confusion, distraction and inaction.

End it NOW! I was furious with Brennan when he did this - any twit can see the implications, which we are now living out. One has to conclude this IS the result he wanted.

It's not just poor folks. Wealthy foreigners go to posh birth clinics to tag that 'born in the USA' onto their kid and provide 'options.' It's called birth tourism. http://tinyurl.com/birth-tourism200

It's hard to 'send back' a 14-year old, isn't it? And they count on that. Can we have some kind of residency status that will never confer citizenship? Of course we can. It's a matter of will, not law. This illegal baby bundling industry must stop.

Of course it was the result "they" wanted, Bay, –– "they" being The OLIGARCHS. Men like Brennan –– and now our darling Chief Justice John Roberts –– are put in place by The Oligarchs to acts as their TOOLS.

Our democratic process has been subverted and made a SHAM by the surreptitious, behind- the-scenes machinations of The Oligarchs.

The Marxists sought to destroy the power of MONEY, so naturally "MONEY" fought back and went into PARTNERSHIP with the MARXISTS. The result is the Crony-Capitalist-Corporatist DICTATORSHIP under which we now suffer as we waste our labor in fruitless toil.

TYRANNY comes in many guises. Most often it cloaks itself in the garb of a "SAVIOR," or a LIBERATOR."

Even if "birthright citizenship is a fait accompli, chain migration is not.Chain migration can be reduced via conventional legislation. Increased border security & visa controls would also reduce the number of birthright babies born to illegals.

I assume by chain migration, you mean the process where the kids petition to bring their parents into the US.

That cannot happen until the kids are at least 21 years old and then, if the parents were here illegally when the child was born, the kids must wait an additional 10 years for a total of 31 years before the reunification process can even be considered.

Not just the parents. The way the laws are written and interpreted today, the entire extended family is eligible in short order...uncles, aunts, cousins...and once they become citizens, they can bring their immediate families (if they aren't here already).

Dave, I think the rules as you describe them are quite different than the actuality of what's happening.

I know almost no Hispanics I don't like and admire... i wonder sometimes if they'd feel better about themselves if they'd come in legally. Twenty years ago, they would walk by and not meet your eyes out of fear and embarrassment...now most of them, particularly the young men I see (and I have a lot around me here in West L.A....living 3 families to a 2 bedroom apt if they're lucky enough that it's 2 bdrms) look you right in the eye with a daring...ALL children I see talk English between each other and on the school yard nearby and ALL are clean and pressed and hair's slicked down....and their parents always walk them to school.

I would love to embrace them legally and encourage them to get better jobs than gardeners and maids, frankly.

Dave, I think the rules as you describe them are quite different than the actuality of what's happening.

I know almost no Hispanics I don't like and admire... i wonder sometimes if they'd feel better about themselves if they'd come in legally. Twenty years ago, they would walk by and not meet your eyes out of fear and embarrassment...now most of them, particularly the young men I see (and I have a lot around me here in West L.A....living 3 families to a 2 bedroom apt if they're lucky enough that it's 2 bdrms) look you right in the eye with a daring...ALL children I see talk English between each other and on the school yard nearby and ALL are clean and pressed and hair's slicked down....and their parents always walk them to school.

I would love to embrace them legally and encourage them to get better jobs than gardeners and maids, frankly.

However, we have another type of Latinos: MS-13 and drug dealers. Yes, I actually see them if I travel 3.5 blocks north and 1.5 miles south of our house if I go to those locations at dusk or later. The schools (middle school and high school) in this area have a serious problem with these criminal elements; they do not walk their children to school.

By that reasoning, AOW, shouldn't we start a campaign to rid the nation of Inner-City NEGROES as well as LATINOS?

Shouldn't we also clap all the AGITATORS who ADVOCATE the troublemaking presence of highly undesirable Subversive, anti-Social Elements such as MUSLIMS, COMMUNISTS, ANARCHISTS, MAFIOSI and aggressive, proselytizing ATHEISTS in JAIL?

Why not make a clean sweep of ALL problem-generating elements AT ONCE while we're, at it?

Z, and others... it seems the best evidence we have of "anchor babies" and birth tourism is that a majority of it is coming from well heeled Asian folks.

This does not discount the number of children born to Latinos here illegally, just to say that the largest group, at least statistically, of people who come here to give birth are not from Latin America, but from Asia.

Mike, yes, through family reunification, a lot of the family can come, after the parents, which takes between 21 and 31 years after birth.

AOW, I hear you on the MS elements... they are not a favorite of my Mexican friends, those here legally or illegally and in fact are a worry for my friends from El Salvador as well.

Indeed, they are a nasty, and wide ranging group and many of them are in fact, legally here. We should use the RICO statutes in this case.

Of course you don't, but many of our more ignorant, xenophobic elements -- and possibly a majority among the blue collar classes and welfare-dependent non-whites as well –– would likely draw such an inference from the material posted here today.

My feeling is this has to stop; people appreciate citizenship when they have to work for it. We can't afford to keep absorbing more and more looking for something FROM us.

Here is a list of countries around the world and their position on "Jus Soli"..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

India and Malta are the 2 which abolished birthright citizenship;....which is probably good. I'm trying to think of anyone I know who can't wait to have a baby in India and let them support it (smile!)

Problematic is that we do not fully crunch the numbers regarding the cost to taxpaying citizens for the pregnant mothers and their anchor babies. Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas provides: *Free prenatal care and medications *Nutrition classes *birthing classes and *childcare classes. They are bestowed with free car seats, diapers, baby bottles, formula.

From there - just suck in your breath and imagine the mother signed up for WIC, and any other number of x,y,z entitlement programs.

The financial drain begins before the birth of the child, continues with the use of our Children's Hospitals as glorified clinics, and then the financial drain expands as the children enter our public schools in ESL status because the lazy parents could care less if their children learn to speak English in the home.

The impact to Parkland Memorial Hospital is tremendous.

Another "best kept" secret? Illegal immigrants on dialysis. Have any idea how much that venture is costing us?

Federal law forces states to give illegal immigrants emergency medical care, but a few go beyond the mandate by also offering free chronic treatment at a cost of tens of millions of dollars to U.S. taxpayers.

Among them is California, which spent $51 million last year to provide more than 1,300 illegal immigrants with free kidney dialysis. Officials estimate that over time a single patient on dialysis will easily cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

Case in point; an illegal immigrant from Mexico who has received free kidney dialysis—around 2,000 sessions—for nearly two decades at a southern California facility. Officials estimate that the treatment has already cost taxpayers more than half a million dollars, not including a costly kidney transplant in 1993.

[...]

Illegal immigrant healthcare costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars annually. Most appalling is that Mexico’s government operates programs in about a dozen American cities that refers its nationals—living in the U.S. illegally—to publicly funded health centers where they can get free medical care without being turned over to immigration authorities....

and then I worry about young students who are American and watching immigrants get so much of their college paid for...But then, this is like felons in prison getting things like sex change operations paid for by US.......or in the military and getting that paid for BY US.This country's lost its bearings....due to liberalism which breeds a kind of 'kindness' that makes no sense at all....Who doesn't want to be kind? BUt this is outrageous and, frankly, it's breaking us financially.

and then I worry about young students who are American and watching immigrants get so much of their college paid for...But then, this is like felons in prison getting things like sex change operations paid for by US.......or in the military and getting that paid for BY US.This country's lost its bearings....due to liberalism which breeds a kind of 'kindness' that makes no sense at all....Who doesn't want to be kind? BUt this is outrageous and, frankly, it's breaking us financially.

Recently, my doctor ran a blood test to see if I've ever had the chickenpox.

Nope.

Because I've never had the chickenpox, I'm now undergoing two vaccines to be immunized against chickenpox; each vaccine is costing me $150 out of pocket because ObamaCare provisions do not pay for adult vaccinations for chickenpox (shingles vaccine is paid for, BTW).

I asked my doctor, "After all these years, do I now need this chickenpox vaccine because of illegal immigrants?" He grunted -- which I interpreted as an affirmative response. Chickenpox did appear last summer during that wave of immigrant children flooding across our southern border.

My doctor came here as a child when he and his parents -- his father was a medical doctor -- were legally admitted here as refugees (Hungarian Revolution of 1956).

My point in sharing this information: there is indeed a cost of illegal immigration. I'm now personally bearing a $300 cost for chickenpox vaccination.

What a story...more costs..and YOURS, just what you needed :-(I am hearing that tuberculosis is on the rise, measles are back, even whooping cough...these things had been conquered but illegal immigrants are bringing them in. I guess some people just don't care. WHY?And if you could hear the testing I had to do as adult to live in Paris, France!! X RAYS, vaccinations......all paid for by ME. Or I couldn't live there.France isn't stupid. IT"S US

Z,AND to top it all off, I've had a reaction to the chickenpox vaccine. Not a terrible reaction, but enough to put my stomach in an uproar for 48 hours.

The doctor doesn't want me to go back to work until the end of October because "kids" are there.

"Stay away from kids until you're vaccinated," he said. You see, one can actually transmit the chicken box while the vaccine -- a live vaccine -- is reaching the full effect of immunity.

Well, payday for me September 8 -- payday for the entire homeschool term -- and I can't afford to wait until the end of October for a payday. Besides, the students are vaccinated.

I am hearing that tuberculosis is on the rise, measles are back, even whooping cough...these things had been conquered but illegal immigrants are bringing them in.

Absolutely true, Z. What some people do not realize is that vaccines for measles and whooping cough may well wear off after several decades. Some doctors are revaccinating their patients because of the flood of illegal immigratns.

As for TB, the strain of most concern is the drug-resistant strain. No defense against that.

Well, AOW...that's okay if WE DIE, at least we did the right thing in letting hispanics get in illegally, demand we pay for their housing, schooling and medicine, and ignore their gangs and that they've brought in disease...gee, we want to be tolerant, right? (trying to get my tongue out of my cheek now...Do all liberals talk with their tongues there?!)

AOW, I’m so relieved to hear that your doctor has made that point about vaccines that most ignore. Newly vaccinated children carry the live virus and have the potential to infect people they come in contact with just as those who have the disease!

Responsible parents should be alerted – nay required - to keep their children in isolation for 8-10 weeks. Yes - isolation, just as if they had the disease. (I believe that timeframe is accurate. I am going by memory of a lengthy doctor's column I read last month, and it jibes with what you were told about waiting until the end October.) It's criminal that they don't enforce this.

And then in California you have whooping cough outbreaks documented to occur mainly in the vaccinated population, so who knows.

Chickenpox immunity does not last forever, either, as my family learned the hard way when my uncle caught the chickenpox the second time at age 31 and died:

The long-term duration of protection from varicella vaccine is unknown, but there are now persons vaccinated more than thirty years ago with no evidence of waning immunity, while others have become vulnerable in as few as six years. Assessments of duration of immunity are complicated in an environment where natural disease is still common, which typically leads to an overestimation of effectiveness.[8]

Some vaccinated children have been found to lose their protective antibody in as little as five to eight years.[9] However, according to the World Health Organization: "After observation of study populations for periods of up to 20 years in Japan and 10 years in the United States, more than 90% of immunocompetent persons who were vaccinated as children were still protected from varicella." However, since only one out of five Japanese children were vaccinated, the annual exposure of these vaccinees to children with natural chickenpox boosted the vaccinees' immune system. In the United States, where universal varicella vaccination has been practiced, the majority of children no longer receive exogenous (outside) boosting, thus, their cell-mediated immunity to VZV (varicella zoster virus) wanes—necessitating booster chickenpox vaccinations.[10] Some persons exposed to the virus after vaccine can experience milder cases of chicken pox (and usually then harbor both the attenuated vaccine or oka strain as well as the wild type or natural chickenpox strain which are both subject to reactivation as shingles).[11]

Catching "wild" chickenpox as a child has been thought to commonly result in lifelong immunity. Indeed, parents have deliberately ensured this in the past with "pox parties". Historically, exposure of adults to contagious children has boosted their immunity, reducing the risk of shingles.[12]

The CDC and corresponding national organisations are carefully observing the failure rate which may be high compared with other modern vaccines—large outbreaks of chickenpox having occurred at schools which required their children to be vaccinated.

Stop the free money and most of them will leave. The rest who apparently are working and self-sufficient more or less will submit to fingerprinting, DNA sample, mug shots, ID'd as illegal, and allowed to stay maybe with a work visa.Any criminal activity and out they go with the rest. any future criminal activity, and no getting back in on a work visa.Balance this against an American who commits some penny antry "felony" and they're not allowed to own a gun. Some 18 year old male gets caught with a 17 year old and has to register as a sex offender the rest of their life. What is required of the illegal Mexicans? Nothing. Not a single fricken thing. Not even car insurance. Man I hate libtards.

Sorry, but you're wrong about car insurance, Kid. No one can buy a car and get it tagged without showing proof of insurance –– at least not in any state where I've ever lived. Driving without tags means you'll be picked up and taken off the road very quickly.

If we REALLY want to stymie the lives of illegals and make it impossible for them to live here, we should make it impossible for them o buy a vehicle without showing PROOF of CITIZENSHIP.

After all I had to show an OFFICIAL COPY of my goddam BIRTH CERTIFICATE before I could get my driver's license renewed last time around. That REALLY burned my butt.

FT, Nope. Sorry but mexicans are involved in accidents all the time around Cincinnati, no license, no insurance. Given a court order to appear in 30 days, never show up. Happens all the time.In Texas, a law was recently passed that if you don't have insurance when stopped for any reason, your car is impounded, and you can't get it back without showing proof of insurance and paying the towing and impound costs, This has resulted in a 43% reduction in accidents and a large number of illegals cars impounded and never retrieved. It's a great way to get around the federal laws.

FT,you're wrong about car insurance, Kid. No one can buy a car and get it tagged without showing proof of insurance

That's not true here! At our DMV (This area is a sanctuary city), all one has to do is sign a statement affirming that one has car insurance -- unless, that is, one has had one's license revoked or has been convicted of a DUI.

And there's another little trick, too: get the insurance on a monthly-payment basis, get the car tagged and titled, then drop the insurance a month or two later. Rinse and repeat.

Birth certificates are required here, but there is a huge forgery business for COLB's as well as other means of fraud.

Let us remember those tricks I just mentioned. They often apply to cab drivers -- in this region, anyway. Get the state-required $300,000 policy, file that certificate with the cab company, then drop the liability limits so as to pay lower insurance premiums.

The cab companies themselves are not liable for any accidents caused by their drivers, either. The drivers themselves are liable, and they often have no assets to use so as to offset others whom they've injured.

If you are of a certain age, most doctors will routinely recommend the shingles vaccination.

Don't have that vaccination if you haven't had the "wild" chickenpox because one can contract the chickenpox from the shingles vaccine is one doesn't have varicella antibodies in one's bloodstream. In fact, it is POSSIBLE that one doesn't have the varicella antibodies in one's bloodstream even IF one has had the "wild" chickenpox. "Wild" chickenpox doesn't provide lifetime immunity to chickenpox -- as my family discovered when my uncle, who had the "wild" chickenpox as a toddler, died of the chickenpox at age 31 after his 8-year-old son brought the chickenpox into the home.

Almost all states in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania grant citizenship at birth based upon the principle of jus sanguinis (right of blood), in which citizenship is inherited through parents not by birthplace, or a restricted version of jus soli in which citizenship by birthplace is not automatic for the children of certain immigrants.

Why don't you waddle over to our hospital based clinic in Irving, Texas? Hispanics fill out a form and pay a flat fee of ten dollars. My son used the clinic and showed up with a three hundred dollar bill for a tetanus shot and a course of antibiotics.

Americans just want fairness in the process. The process is biased against the legal, taxpaying citizen. This is like the man who compassionately gives away his paycheck to a poor family and then serves up water and crackers to his own family. The ultimate compassion must be directed toward the citizen first. This is "our" birthright. In the Judaic tradition the birthright for inheritance, etc. belonged to the firstborn. Each and every American is a firstborn. We are deserving of our birthright. But our birthright is stripped and given to another.

AOW, Sue the bastards back to the stone age over every nonsensical thing like the libtards have been doing for decades. And we should have been doing it in spades when we had a reasonable supreme court.

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